


Knock, Knock

by mymindsofar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Attempt at Humor, Bad Puns, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Bear - Freeform, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Closeted Characters, College AU, Fanon References, Fluff, Gen, History Nerd Steve, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, Inappropriate Humor, Insecurity, Low Self-Esteem, M/M, Mentions of dubious consent, Morse Code, Night Vale References, One Two Three Four Open Up The Closet Door, Past Abuse, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve has trust issues, Tony Stark Is a Piece Of Work, Underage Drinking, Wall Neighbors, Yes Steve Rogers is a virgin, pop culture references, science nerd Bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-06-06 19:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6767140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mymindsofar/pseuds/mymindsofar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam looks exasperated. "You guys were told about texting, right?"</p><p>Or: How do you call two nerds who talk to each other through a wall? Concrete idiots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. hello from the other side

**Author's Note:**

> Single quote marks are what they say in Morse (it's easier to read than the capital letters), dialogue is marked with the double ones.

‘S T O P’, Steve knocks in Morse alphabet through the wall. After twenty minutes of low-key torture and plenty of pleas that somehow didn’t make it through, _Morse code_ suddenly does it. It’s a long shot that some guy in a college dorm will get what he actually means by the knocks, but at least he made him stop through the _implied_ message. The leisure, persistent banging against the transparent walls of the dorm comes to a halt. Satisfied, Steve returns to the task of getting angry over Calculus.

‘S O R R Y’, he deciphers from the rhythmic bangs that come back from the other side. It spikes Steve’s interest. That could have been no coincidence.

‘W A L L S  R  T H I N’, he knocks back, and it’s as much of an acceptance as it is a fair warning. It’s happened only a few times since he moved in, but it seemed so innocent and not intentional enough that Steve had ignored whenever he could feel the thump of something against his bed wall vibrating in his stomach. He never heard voices from the other side, muttering maybe, and yet when someone as much as brushed against the wall, it irritated the fuck out of him, which is the reason why he created a barricade of pillows against the treacherous structure to at least minimize the damage he does to his wall neighbor. It’s not like he was asking anything in return, he didn’t mind the accidental brush every now and then, but there had to be limits.

The rooms in this wing have been a cheap addition to the building’s structure in the recent years (he had asked Natasha, who was probably only studying architecture to somehow overthrow the government), so it’s no wonder that they had a massive oversight on the acoustic isolation, mainly concerning the echoing walls. (“Idiots,” she had pronounced them.)

‘I  K N O W  W I L L  S T O P’. Steve learned Morse Code back in high school with a group of other geeks who were interested in all kinds of WWII things, mainly what had a _positive_ effect on the future and shaped the following decades. The alphabet is a tricky thing to remember, and even trickier not to fuck up. But he managed so far.

‘I T S  O K A Y’, Steve replies.

After a moment of silence, the other side knocks again, ‘W H A T  U  U P  T O?’ As he’s easing into it, he takes up his speed deciphering the sounds as actual words instead of solely letters, and though this form of communication takes a while, his anonymous partner seems to pick up on it just as quickly. They use common abbreviations when it makes sense to.

‘Studying. You?’

‘Not much, waiting for my roomies.’

‘Party?’

‘No. Night in. Wanna come?’

‘No, thanks.’ Steve is waiting for an answer, but he doesn’t get it at once. The guy on the other side is probably offended at his quick refusal, so he clarifies; ‘I’m doing Calculus.’

He thinks he hears a laugh at the other side of the wall. It must have been very loud. He can probably exclude that it’s a girl, since this entire wing is a sausage fest and the girls’ rooms are all on the left wing.

‘Need help?’ Steve is left a little baffled by a guy ready to help him out of nowhere when they haven’t ever seen each other, or if they had, probably never thought of starting a conversation. It makes him consider all kinds of possibilities of who the stranger might be. But if they haven’t talked a month after living in the same dorm, they probably never will come to have an actual conversation, for a multitude of reasons.

‘I’ll manage,’ he replies, almost sadly, pretty sure the exchange will die at that.

‘Engineering and math,’ the other side knocks back, and there’s a cockiness in there that Steve hadn’t known could be transmitted through banging your knuckles against something.

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Try me.’ Steve sighs, and warns him for being so slow before he begins to translate the exercise.

F U C K. Steve laughs once he gets the entire word.

‘Yes,’ he replies.

‘Come over,’ the other guy says. ‘Hard to explain. Can’t go through walls.’ Steve is uncertain of the whereabouts of that proposal, and he chooses not to risk it. If high school taught him anything, it’s how to mistrust most of the school body, and being invited over twice in the past ten minutes is a little too friendly, if not suspicious.

‘It’s okay, I’ll manage,’ he replies, being polite.

‘Come on. What’s your name?’

Steve thinks about this one. The anonymity makes him more relaxed. Even if the guy is a dick, at least he’s safe from seeing him face to face for a while. He considers saying ‘Sam’, the name of his roommate, but drops the idea for obvious reasons; he’s not gonna throw his roommate under the bus for this. He isn’t sure why he fears it so much; the guy could be not a douche, after all, but he’s been pretty persistent on getting him into his dorm so far. Maybe he knows who he is, and is trying to lure him in for whatever reason.

Steve reconsiders. That is ridiculous. The original banging, even if intentional, couldn’t have been some master plan to get him into the room on the other side of the rectangle-shaped hallway to wrap him into toiler paper and stuff him into the janitor’s closet. Or could it?

‘Still there, stranger?’ He feels guilty for not replying to such a simple question out of need for self-preservation, which only works if the guy is basically brain-dead enough not to find the dorm room opposite his. It’s such a dumb sense of security that he lulls himself in, and yet he doesn’t let go of it, either.

‘Sorry,’ Steve replies.

‘No problem. Want me to lay off?’ Steve’s insecurities shrink a little bit as he hears himself objecting to the prospect of ending the conversation. There _might_ be no plan after all. He might have simply been bored enough to have one of the weirdest conversations with a stranger at eight in the evening.

‘No,’ he admits.

‘Okay.’

There’s an awkward moment of radio silence.

‘What’s your major?’ he asks then. Steve chuckles.

‘Contemporary history.’

‘Ouch.’

‘Not your favorite?’

‘Mean teacher. Liked showing us war reels and Auschwitz footage.’ Steve cringes bitterly. That might flag down any passion for the subject, if you’re going being bombarded instead of taken through it.

‘Makes sense,’ he says simply.

‘Call me B,’ he says out of nowhere. Steve thinks about it. Brandon, Brian, Bruce? The Bruce he knows is a shy guy at the end of the hallway who never hangs out in the common room, which is one characteristic they share. (Not that there could not _possibly_ be another Bruce in the building.)

What could be the right name for an engineer? _Ben_ , he decides. It sounds smart and simple and he’s never met anyone mean named Ben.

But it could not be an initial after all. It’s the second letter of the alphabet, it could be anything.

In the wake of that, he finally introduces himself as R, unimaginatively so for last name Rogers.

B jokes about the air of mystery they are keeping up, and Steve feels guilty for that. He apologizes again, and in frustration, B bangs against the wall outside the rules of Morse Code.

In the hallway, he hears voices who first become louder, then fade, and after a few moments they fill the room he’s eavesdropping on. So, B’s friends arrived. He pulls the notepad back on his lap, declaring the twenty-minute conversation as finished.

He hears the exchange on the other side only muffled, and doesn’t exactly follow. He does feel like he’s invading privacy, as if he had said goodbye after a phone call and hadn’t hung up.

Then, the muttering stops. He’s completely alone. He moves on to the next exercise, which isn’t getting him out of his misery anytime soon.

But then there’s another message. Steve is so startled for a moment, he struggles to reconstruct the most likely beginning of B’s sentence and he isn’t sure he has done so properly. ‘What’s the deal?’ (With Calculus, he presumes, or History, or whatever they were talking about a moment ago.)

‘Why are they gone?’ Steve asks back, dumbly.

‘Went out after all.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

‘Dunno.’ Steve feels the shrug, the quick scratching of his shoulder against the wall. ‘Now, why the secrecy?’

The question would have been menacing if it wasn’t drawn out by the means it came to Steve. He writes it down if the sequence gets longer and adds B’s presumed intonation to it as he goes.

‘Could you repeat that?’ he asks, deflecting the question by pretending not having understood the sequence. The Howling Commandos and he (don’t ask, it was high school and he was an outcast) had competitions in who could say it faster in Morse Code. Like spelling bee but even nerdier. He prepares his pen for B’s reply.

He puts in longer breaks between the sentences. ‘We live in the same dorm. We’re talking through a wall. You won’t even tell me your name.’ Steve looks at the scribbles underneath the exercise. He reads and rereads the sentence.

Fair point. But before he can reply, B says, ‘Don’t say sorry again, idiot.’ Steve smiles uncomfortably, busted relentlessly in his self-deprecating pattern. ‘But why?’

‘I don’t know who you are.’ It’s so ridiculous to say.

‘You want my full name?’ B’s tone is mocking, Steve knows so without having heard an actual word.

‘No.’

‘Life story?’

‘No.’

‘Then I can’t change that.’ Steve is halfway apologizing again, but decides instead not to. He once again hears sounds coming from the hallway, but suddenly, the door opens, and Sam waltzes in and drops his practice gear. He swears under his breath from exhaustion.

“I hate Fury. Motherfucking burpees,” he curses, which he does sparsely, unless it comes to their coach, who’s mantra is tough love and torture.

‘Who’s there?’ comes from the wall.

“Who’s there?” Sam asks, looking behind him, realizing it’s not the door. He looks confused, and Steve stifles his laugh with the back of his hand.

“Dorm room on the other side.”

Sam looks exasperated. “You guys were told about texting, right?” Too personal, too soon, Steve thinks, though not out loud. B might hear.

‘Heard about it,’ he hears Bucky knock back to him. Is he using a glass to hear that? It makes Steve a little uneasy.

“What did he say?” Sam inquires, and Steve’s smile stretches thin as he avoids growing red.

“Didn’t get it,” Steve lies. A loud thump echoes in return, and Steve just grins. Maybe he’s just a little too amused by this, and somewhat confused and embarrassed by what B had been hinting at. That those had most likely been genuine attempts to get closer to him, and Steve couldn’t figure out why that would even be in the first place. Although, other possibilities remain, but to Steve’s defiance, they slowly shrink.

Sam hauls himself on the bunk bed above his and announces that he will now listen to music, for which Steve is grateful. He couldn’t have been more obvious, and Steve isn’t let off the hook before one final comment, a well-meant, but raw, ‘Nerd,’ at which Steve lets his head sink with a smile. It was not loud enough for B to hear, no matter how tightly he could have been pressing his ear against the wall.

‘He has headphones now,’ Steve informs B.

‘Okay. Let’s do messenger, at least. I can help with Calculus.’

Steve stills. It’s not solely mistrust, it’s the illusion he foolishly becomes fond of. They won’t come out as friends once they know each others identities – B still has to discover that Steve is an asthmatic 5’1 bag of bones with a lot more issues than years he’s lived through – and knowing that, Steve wants to stretch out the inevitable.

‘I told you, I’ll do it later.’

‘Sorry,’ B says all of a sudden. ‘For being persistent.’

‘We just don’t know anything about each other,’ he replies defensively, mostly because no one ever thinks he’s fun.

‘Broken record,’ B replies. Steve doesn’t fight the title.

Then Bucky proposes something, something so stupid and primitive that for now, Steve gives up the idea that this could be a well-planned set up, because no one would stick around after two rejections to meet in person and a quiz about favorite things. Color? Blue. Animal? Dog. Season? Autumn.

He feels like he’s doing a personality test, which covers bands and movies and at some point, through one or the other song, favorite moment from vacation, favorite place to visit, most annoying relative, and so on. It’s a non-stop irregular pattern of knocking that continues for almost an hour. The most surprising part is that it doesn’t manage to bore him, because for every fact he reveals, he gets one from B in return, and that makes talking about himself more bearable.

He listens more closely to what B has to say. He writes down the longer parts on the rest of the page, which is too precious paper to be wasted on Calculus anyway. ‘The youngest is in middle school right now. I’ve infected her with my passion for math.’

‘Infected is the right word,’ Steve jokes. B actually replies with ‘H A H A’. Steve hears himself chuckle under his breath.

‘I’ll make the things to destroy the world, you’ll be the one to write about it.’ Scientists and historians, the dependency the two fields have on each other. He’s never considered it much, but it’s an interesting thought.

‘It won’t end with a bang,’ Steve reminds him.

‘A whimper.’

‘Yes.’

‘Fun stuff,’ B complains.

‘I haven’t promised entertainment.’

‘Should’ve read the label more carefully.’

Steve hears Sam taking his headphone off. “You two should just get a room,” he says, although unaware of the content of their conversation.

‘I’m on it,’ B replies, almost in a hiss (again, if that was possible to convey through knocks, but Steve starts to believe it is, getting self-conscious about his own way of knocking). Steve raises an eyebrow. He never mentioned along the way that he was interested in the possibility to initiate something with someone he only dimly heard through a wall. He notices the panic he feels is less intense, maybe it’s the knowledge that Sam is with him. He hates relying on people, but with he can’t afford losing his scholarship _if_ something happens. His mistrust, despite its irrationality, is hard to shake.

‘Shut up,’ he knocks at the same time as he tells it to Sam.

‘Is that a No?’

‘Why would you want that?’

‘Boy, your self-esteem is down the drain, isn’t it? I like you, man.’

‘What if I’m not who you think I am?’ Steve realizes his mistake in phrasing too late. It includes the possibility that he isn’t.

‘Moving fast, are you? Not even a date first?’ He bites his lips, his body emitting an icy heat wave, the indescribable sensation of dismay and fear that he’s overcome whenever he is convinced of imminent danger. He realizes this is playing towards a different scenario than he had originally thought of.

‘Are you gay?’ Steve asks, cautiously, way slower than he had knocked before. He’s _tapping_ , he realizes. It’s as close to whispering as it gets.

‘Maybe. You?’

He isn’t sure what to say. If he’s honest, will this change anything at this point? Can he make the punishment for the foolish mistake he’s already committed _worse_?

‘Same,’ he replies, because it’s still the safest bet. The safest bet to avoid an unwanted confrontation. This is not a guy in the hallway cornering another one and he’s stepping in, where he can estimate the possible outcomes by the sheer size and behavior of the threat. He literally doesn’t know what will hit him.

‘It’s not too late to show your face yet,’ B replies. Or tell me your name, or get your brains mashed up up just outside the building.

‘I know,’ he replies. He feels B getting frustrated with him. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay, R.’ Then, a pause. ‘I’m scared, too.’

‘Of what?’

‘That you won’t like me either.’ What a childish fear. Is that why B has been holding back?

‘I don’t care much for looks.’ Is Steve trying to soothe B, or himself?

“Steve, I know this is quirky and nerdy and all, but I can hear it through the music. Get over yourself,” Sam mutters. Steve feels guilty for having annoyed him unknowingly for so long.

‘Steve?’

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. No.

It’s hardly a secret, but until now, it could have been Sam. He could have stayed anonymous to some extent, until B would be standing by his door the next morning, with something like, ‘You’re the queer shit who’s been putting his heart on his sleeve all night, right?’

He doesn’t reply, he stays frozen in place. And there’s silence on the other side, too. He curses Sam internally.

“Steve?” Sam asks, cautiously. _Stop saying my name,_ he pleads silently.

A few moments later, the nightmare becomes reality. Knock, knock. It might be the RA asking to keep it down (it only dawns him now that the knocking might have been audible to more than just the adjoined rooms, what an idiot he’s been), or worse, B.

But Steve doesn’t move. “Steve,” Sam repeats, this time more pressing. “Jesus,” he mutters, jumps down from his bunk and walks to the door. It opens inside the room, and he doesn’t see who it is.

“No, I’m not the droid you’re looking for,” Sam says, matter-of-factly. “You’re the knock-knock guy, right?”

“Yeah. I was... Sorry for barging in.” Without the obstacle of the wall, his voice is so much nicer, warmer. It’s not what he’d expected it to be.

“Wanna come in?” Steve wants to scream no. But Sam saw B, right? He can’t have the intention of doing anything with Sam in the room, right?

B passes him, and Steve finally gets to see him. He has a man-bun, from the looks of it, a choice rather originating from laziness than aesthetics, and he wears the red, wide hoodie with the university’s logo on it, jeans and Chucks. He’s so _normal_ , and also not.

A light-skinned, lean brunet with gentle blue eyes and the face of a God.

And there is Steve, in his jogging pants since he came from clasz, old inside-wear-only glasses and having gone without a shower for almost a day now. What a disappointment that must be.

“Bucky,” he says, and at first, Steve does not understand. Then his hand reaches forward, and he puts the obvious pieces together. “I’m the one who’s been actively trying not to do this and did it anyway. Apologies.”

Steve still doesn’t move, or talk, or think, or breathe. Sam chuckles.

“Yeah, he’s always like that. That just now has been the chattiest I’ve seen him,” Sam points out, gesturing at the wall behind Steve.

He finds the courage to stand up. He’s a good foot smaller than Bucky. He takes the hand, Bucky’s eyes directly on him.

“What the fuck were you talking about, you’re pretty,” Bucky blurts out. He retreats his hand. “Uh, sorry.”

Sam looks at both of them. “I can’t up with an excuse, so I’m just gonna leave,” Sam says, opens the door, and before Steve can protest, it shuts close.

Bucky smiles. God he has a nice smile. He hadn’t pictured him like this. Not at all.

“Are you gonna say anything? I dare you to say sorry again.”

“Or what?” Steve replies, an unexpected cockiness protruding through his bafflement. Maybe not so surprising, after all, it’s a well-programmed defense mechanism. He sounds like himself, but he isn’t really inhibiting the entity he is at the moment.

Bucky laughs. “Or I’m gonna make you sorry.”

“How?” Steve asks, dumbly frightened.

“I’ll leave.”

The ‘no’ in his throat dies when he realizes his face has been just enough to convey the message. Bucky leans over, until he’s barely within Steve’s focus, and Steve doesn’t just let the next thing happen, he _makes_ it happen.

They share a kiss – God, he tastes unnaturally but not too intensely sweet – and it’s brief and subtle and daring and curious and withheld.

And then, it’s like it never happened, and Steve feels his innocent disappointment crawling through. Was that too short because Bucky didn’t like it? Did he do something wrong? Bad breath? Gay panic?

“So, what’s that evil Calculus thing all about?” Bucky asks, calmly, and Steve has to laugh all of a sudden.

“You really do like solving problems,” Steve says, the words leaving his mouth just a little easier than before.


	2. is that alright with you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, after two chapters of alluding to Natasha on multiple occasions now, I pinky-promise you the next one will have its fair share of dedication to everyone’s favorite femme fatale and the trouble she carries along like a second purse. Well, and as we say in German, misfortune seldom comes alone.
> 
> In case anyone thought this was gonna be light and fluffy and completely angst-free after the first chapter, I’m here to disappoint.
> 
> And, before I leave you to it: in case you’re spoiler-sensitive, there’s a brief, superficial summary of a turning event in The Normal Heart, and it’s not _technically_ a spoiler (it’s in the IMDB movie description), but should that bother you, skip the part between ‘[…] and Clint laughs in agreement.’ and ‘Why would Steve […]’. 
> 
> ● ● – ● – – – – – – – ● – – !

“Knock knock,” Clint says, ripping the music out of Bucky’s left ear. He takes in a deep, agitated breath for being gripped out of his flow. He rubs his damaged ear with a pout.

“Fuck off,” Bucky barks, mildly recovered, and stretches. The rhythm of his bones cracking is a tell-tale sign that it’s time to fix his awful work posture.

“Did you mean _knock it_ off?”

Bucky glares at him. It was funny last week, maybe. Or the week before that. But after a dozen or more terrible ‘knock knock’ jokes Natasha bluntly enabled Clint, he’s done with this. (‘Knock knock’ – ‘Who’s there?’ – ‘R.’ – ‘R who?’ – ‘R you free tonight, Bucky?’)

Yes, he met Steve through a wall. Yes, Steve is very handsome and reads smart books and can quote entire speeches from past presidents and emperors and kings when it’s late and their conversations deter from class projects and tedious professors. Pro tip: don’t argue with Steve fucking Rogers about history. In fact, don’t argue with him at all. He can, and he _will_ shut up Natasha and that alone makes him a seven nation army. Could be very well the reason Nat hasn’t mentioned him once before they officially met.

“How’s your boyfriend?” Clint asks. Bucky looks up from his studies he hasn’t really paid attention to since Clint forced him back into the real world. He gave up on fighting the label, because that will only increase its use as Clint is literally five and a half years old. He eats cereal because he likes it, not because he’s broke.

“Good,” Bucky snaps back. But to be fair, he doesn’t know. They’ve been texting in the evenings for two weeks. And that’s pretty much it.

Well, he’s invited him out two more times to hang out with Clint and Nat (because yes, Bucky can count his friends off of one hand), but both times, Steve declined.

He’s helped him a little bit with Calculus after the night they met, not because Steve asked, but because at some point he got frustrated enough that he hit the wall with his head so hard Bucky threatened to come over. They’ve settled on a compromise, in which Steve agreed to send him the problem at hand per text and Bucky replying with the right approach to the problem so he can go on from that. It’s how he got Steve’s phone number. It is pretty ridiculous to sit practically back to back, separated by a thin wall and text each other math problems, but that’s the road so far.

On the bright side of this, he found out Steve had already sought (or rather stumbled upon) the company of Natasha, who had kind of in an on-off thing with Clint last year. Which means Bucky knows her a little more intimately than he necessarily had to. He wouldn’t dare to complain, she’s not bad company to keep, all awkwardness of stumbling on a drunk bathroom quickie aside.

Both she and Steve are taking Russian History classes – yes, Miss _Romanova_ must be desperately in need of those – and were teamed up for a project on the whole Zar thing at the beginning of the semester, as it turned out.

“Need a massage?” Clint asks, suddenly. “You look like a Pretzel.”

Bucky grimaces and imagines his limbs twisted around the place. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“One big knot.” There was a time when Clint could _actually_ make Bucky laugh without him having to feel guilty for being amused by his primitive humor. Bucky positions himself so his back faces Clint, book still in his hands, and tries to relax as Clint works his sturdy fingers right into his very (“Ouch. Fuck. Fuuuuck.”) stiffened back. What the fuck is Clint even doing in college? He could have made _all_ the happy endings come true if he’d just become a masseur. Wasted potential. _So_ much of it.

“How’s the Terminator thing going?” Clint mentions, just to make the fact that he’s giving Bucky a massage in their dorm room for no other reason than that he wants to less weird. They’ve been caught doing worse, which is enough said, really.

 “It’s a teddy bear robot. Not Schwarzenegger.” The robot is his and his partner’s, Tony Stark, practical assignment. It’s a hell of a lot of work.

 Not the robot. Tony.

 Bucky will bite off his finger next time he tries to program it to say ‘Who’s your daddy?’ when you press the area where its genitals would be.

 “It’s got wiring and a metal body and I can’t unsee it without the fake fluffy exterior. It’s telling a lie.” Clint presses down particularly hard on his shoulder blade and Bucky whines.

 “It’s not,” he grits defensively, once recovered, and looks at the brown bear on the window sill. He’s not gonna tell Clint Tony actually nicknamed it Bucky Bear. He had him record himself saying some words and phrases for the data base as a test, and even though they’ve changed the voice by now, Tony insisted on keeping the name. But Bucky is not dumb enough to throw free ammunition around after how subtly Clint reacted to discovering the Steve thing, which, technically, is half a kiss (that _Steve_ initiated) and a handful of polite rejections, so go figure. The kiss came out of nowhere, the same as the smile Bucky involuntarily produces every time Steve texts him. It’s _barely_ a thing.

 “We’re close to getting him to walk a few steps,” Bucky tells him. It does make him proud, as long as Tony is the one bruising his fingertips programming it, leaving Bucky with the physical parts.

 Clint scoffs. “Next thing you know he’s armed and asking for Sarah Connor.”

 Bucky can’t help the corners of his mouth quirking up. “There are so many AI movies around. You could’ve at least gone for iRobot this time.”

 “No, that movie was un _bear_ able.” Only Clint fails to underappreciate Will Smith’s work, even though he’s caught him frantically googling the alternative ending to _I Am Legend_ once.

“I need a new set of friends,” Bucky mumbles under his breath, biting back a remorseful chuckle.

“Text Steve, then,” Clint retorts. He drops hints like they’re bricks, that stupid bastard.

Bucky huffs out a deep sigh, cheeks blown full of air. His sister used to call him a chipmunk when he did that. “I tried, remember?”

“Yes, you hugged the Iron Midget real hard that night. I heard you sniffle,” Clint mocks. Bucky assumes that he’s alluding to The Iron Giant, and rolls his eyes at Clint. _So_ not true.

He regrets it immediately when Clint seemingly finds a way _under_ Bucky’s shoulder blade and makes him howl, and not in a fun way.

“You fucking trash can,” Bucky yelps and ducks out from another assault, and Clint takes his hands off him. He’s never agreeing to a massage from him again.

Clint laughs. “True. Considering _you’re_ the trash we’re talking about,” he elaborates, and Bucky pouts, leaning back into his chair as Clint leans his hips against their work desk.

“I don’t like the implication of me being inside you,” Bucky grits, and regret for what he just said hits him like whiplash. He tilts his head forward and rubs his eyes. The company he keeps enables him a smooth, straight way downhill. Of all the people he knows, Natasha is about the closest to sane and adequate to hang around with in public, and she keeps handcuffs in her closet. (He hasn’t looked any deeper.)

Clint laughs out loud. “Well, _that’s_ new.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, hard. “Just because you _assume_ everyone wants to get into your pants doesn’t make it true. ‘S not make-believe.”

“Aww, you’re _still_ upset that I’m straight. Hey, I’m always here for hugs,” Clint replies, stretching out his arms to Bucky. Before he gets those murderous hands around him, Bucky sinks deeper into his chair and gets up for the first time since… Oh. It’s dark outside. Makes him curious about what time it is.

“I’ll assume you won’t let me study now,” he sighs. A glance at his phone gives away that it’s past nine, so he can scratch shoving his nose back into a book at this hour, unless he wants another pitiful look from the coffee cart barista tomorrow morning. “We gonna watch something tonight?” He waits for his reply as he checks his messages. “Are you listening?”

When Bucky looks at him again, Clint is fumbling around with his ears helplessly, and Bucky groans. “Jesus Christ, not again.”

Bucky faces him as he says it, and Clint shrugs as he reads off his lips. Technically, Clint _can_ talk without hearing what he says, he just doesn’t like it much because he says it feels like he’s screaming underwater.

The batteries for his hearing aids last him a week at best, and Bucky sometimes feels like his primary job as a roommate is to make sure he has enough of those for the next round, which apparently, he has neglected lately.

“Okay,” Bucky says. Instead of the sign for ‘batteries’ (because who do you think he is) Bucky points at his ears, hoping Clint gets it, and then adds ‘where’ and ‘put’.

Clint’s voice is leveled, like a robots, which is kinda ironic. “Do I look like I know?” Bucky sighs, and begins to search. He goes through Clint’s bag, the drawer under his bunk and even sums up the courage to ruffle up his sheets. Clint makes himself useful by joining the scavenger hunt, but after ten or so minutes, they give up the fight.

‘Can you ask Steve?’ Clint writes down, because Bucky is helpless at ASL and it’s easier like this.

‘Why him?’ Bucky asks, assuming Clint wants to be a bro and frame the situation as a perfect excuse to go over to his room. But it’d be a horribly cheap ‘can you open this jar please’ excuse. Twenty bucks says some geek in this dorm has them for personal projects. He knows at least two people down the hallway that share classes with him and Tony.

‘His left ear. I saw his hearing aid in the hallway once. He might have some.’

Bucky scratches his forehead. It confuses him that Clint first of all _saw_ Steve (it’s like he has a stealth mode or Bucky is going blind), and also noticed such a huge detail about him Bucky failed to see.

He considers it, and texts Steve just to confirm.

‘Sorry, I got a rechargeable one. You wanna go buy some?’ is the reply, just minutes later _which means nothing at all_. He’s justifiably thrown off by the idea of Steve making a suggestion to meet up, even with a fool-proof pretense. It’s late and Steve probably thought it’d be better to have some company. That should be it. Clint nudges him and Bucky shows him the message.

“Go get him,” he says, still in that weird, even voice, especially since it’s intended to motivate him. “Quick.” Bucky replies to Steve’s message, grabs his keys and wallet and waits for him outside.

Steve comes out in a red and blue full-body scarf that deserves to be called a blanket at this point, hands buried into the pockets of his brown coat. He smiles at Bucky.

“You know it’s not a trip to Alaska, right? Target is like half a mile away,” Bucky tells him as he reaches out to give Steve a side hug… or something. There must have been a misunderstanding along the way so that Bucky awkwardly stands there and has his hand pressing down on Steve’s left shoulder.

“I get cold easily,” Steve explains, apparently not minding the somewhat strange gesture.

Bucky doesn’t need an answer to what they are just yet, it’s fine to stand where they are. Right now, it’s okay that they _just_ stand.

“Let’s go save your friend,” Steve says, freeing himself slowly from the touch.

They barely make it. The store is fifteen minutes short of wrapping up when they walk inside, and Bucky’s stomach decides to make a scene when they get past the snack aisle.

“You hear that? It’s either you or an earthquake,” Steve points out with a grin.

“I’ve been busy today,” Bucky says in his defense. Steve grabs a bag of Doritos and retrieves a six pack of coke cans from the next aisle. He holds them up for Bucky’s inspection. He replies with a shrug before he lines up behind him to proceed the journey towards their actual quest.

“Have _you_ eaten, though?” Bucky asks. “We could order in instead.” He tries to reach for the Dorito bag, but Steve evades him just in the right moment. Bucky floats for a second when their hands touch, and lets out a half-wince at his response to the contact.

“No, it’s fine,” Steve replies, a little eager to get ahead of Bucky.

“So, you haven’t,” Bucky deduces. Steve gives him a twisted smile.

“Alright, put the Doritos down. We’ll get some real food,” Bucky instructs. Luck would have it that they were both too stupid to take care of themselves today. Bucky tries to read not too much into this similarity. It’s not one of the healthiest habits to keep.

Steve struggles for a moment to give into the order before he leaves the bag by the microwaves and carries the soda cans to the battery section. They grab a pack and walk to the check-out as the speakers announce that the store is about to close.

Bucky tries to conceal it as he counts the contents of his wallet, pays for both items by the very grumpy cashier with a sympathetic smile and wishes her a good evening.

Steve shivers as the cold embraces him outside, and Bucky considers putting an arm around him to warm him up, but anxiously decides not to. Instead, he turns left at the next cross for the Chinese place he knows well enough to skip the tofu, which smells like sweat and tastes like rubber, and goes for the tested and approved duck and beef, including Clint’s favorite order to make up for the stalling.

As they walk back, Bucky becomes a little too aware that he has about fifteen bucks left to his name for the rest of the month, which could be about as far away as his degree at this point. And while Clint has been kind enough to cover the dorm rent a couple times and the family members that hate him less – namely his mother and stepfather – continue to provide him with survival essentials, he really loathes constantly worrying about money and worse, _asking_ for it.

His phone vibrates in his pocket, and Bucky nearly drops the food reaching for it before Steve helpfully takes the Target bag from him. ‘Unless you are making out in a dark alley, move that hot piece of ass right back here,’ Clint wrote and Bucky chuckles. Clint giving Bucky backhanded compliments is probably high up there with the reasons he keeps him around, since he’s little of use for almost anything else. Steve looks at him with a question mark, but Bucky decides against showing him the message, and simply tells him, “Clint misses me.”

“Wait, he’s Natasha’s…”

Bucky laughs at Steve’s struggle to define their relationship, as Bucky often does, because after cuddling for like an hour at a party she can easily make out with a handful of people in the course of the same evening, and somehow, they still circle back to each other with seemingly no hard feelings.

“ _Exactly_. They’re not quite fond of labels,” he admits.

Steve looks off distance, a couple cars pass them as they near the campus site. It’s soothingly quiet around this time of the night; Bucky almost doesn’t want to go back in, even though it would be awfully selfish to leave Clint hanging.

“They make relationships sound really fucking complicated,” Steve points out, and Bucky’s eyebrows rise at that, and not just because Steve rarely swears. An unconfirmed assumption clicks into place, but he pushes it away in favor of the benefit of the doubt.

“You mean…” 

“People aren’t lining up for me, exactly.”

 _They should be_ , Bucky wants to say. Steve would fight him on that, though, proven quite well by his resistance to meet face to face because he doubted he would meet Bucky’s _expectations_. Bucky isn’t fond of people pitying themselves, because if he’d give into the urge himself, he’d never go out anymore. But he’s not about to be the asshole who’ll tell him to get his shit together, because the road to inner confidence is long and treacherous.

Steve sighs, and seems to sink further into the pavement. “I think it’s too late to say now, but… I’m sorry for that kiss. I’m just glad you weren’t mad at me for it.” Bucky turns to Steve and stops dead in his tracks.

“What, no, Steve, what?” he says, more gibberish than English, and he wants to slap himself for being too tongue-tied to form properly functioning sentences.

“I’m not usually like that, promise,” Steve adds. Is he _listening_ to himself?

Bucky is still fumbling for the right thing to say that would not fuck it all up. “I… no. You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he manages, and Steve smiles as if he’s been forgiven for some _atrocity_ and not a sweet, short kiss. The bushes that indicate the beginning of their building come to view, and he lowers his voice at the off-chance of other students being around.

“So that wasn’t anything ‘serious’?” he pokes, having found some footing. It feels like a cardboard placed on quicksand; Steve’s answer could drop him face-first into the trap any second now, and he instinctively knows it’s going to hurt.

“No, of course not. I just never kissed a guy before and I took advantage of the situation. It wasn’t fair to you,” Steve explains, with that goddamn _apologetic_ expression on his face. Bucky feels as if his heart was just coldly flushed down a toilet.

He takes in a deep breath. “Steve… Jesus Christ. _I’m_ sorry.” He’d thought that the kiss could be a hint of something… more. Not just curiosity. He didn’t _mind_ , everyone has a right to try things out, even something as simultaneously stupid and exciting as technically kissing a stranger. Hell, Bucky wishes that would have been his first experience with that kind of setting, but his involved less lights and a way less clear state of mind.

Boy, he’s been such an idiot.

“Me too,” Steve agrees, almost cheery. “We’re okay though, right?” he asks, and Bucky stiffens to prevent himself from shaking his head so hard it’d fly off his neck. _We are so far from okay, buddy._

 _Alright_ , he can deal with rejection, and maybe he should have been better at framing his proposals in a platonic way, even though all this time, he thought he’d given him a pretense that could go any possible way. There doesn’t have to be a follow-up to what happened, he can swallow his pride and happily move forward as friends.

“Yeah,” Bucky manages, an octave higher than his normal talking voice. Steve doesn’t catch it, thankfully. Bucky doesn’t let himself get caught up in the fact that Steve follows him into his dorm when he opens the door. _You got food for everyone. Get a grip, Barnes._

Clint sits there in the corner of his bed, phone in his hands. He’s about to jump at Bucky when he throws the batteries at Clint. He sighs in relief, and goes on to put them in as Steve and Bucky take off their coats.

“You’ve brought company,” Clint notices.

“ _And_ food,” Bucky declares in his defense, not knowing any better distraction from having invited over Steve. He doesn’t need Clint to hand out his usual remarks after what they just discussed.

“Alright, fine. Give me a movie since I can finally hear your stupid voice again,” Clint barks back. That’s surprisingly close to a ‘thank you’.

Bucky is thinking hard when Steve saves him from the responsibility. “The Normal Heart,” he throws in. “You have Netflix, right?” So, Steve is staying for a movie.

Clint nods and fishes for his laptop. The RA doesn’t mind when the rules are bent a little, they just gotta make sure they keep it down. It allows the possibility of low-key parties and genders mixing well past midnight on the weekends, but for Bucky, it means he can binge Friends with Clint without headphones. Unless Nat drags him along after he’s spent way too much time inside again, no force could possibly drag him out to a party. Well, technically speaking, Nat’s temperament doesn’t come short of natural disaster either.

Without hesitating, Clint shoves the laptop over to Steve while Bucky unpacks the food and hands it out respectively. He briefly wonders why they haven’t done this sooner, why Steve had needed a reason to see him in person again, and why he picked this one specifically. Probably means nothing.

They talk about how Steve wanted to see the movie for a while, but didn’t have the time. Clint makes room between them, and Bucky sits down on the lower bunk despite not really wanting to be that close to Steve right now. He digs into his food while the movie buffers, his appetite mostly gone.

He’s anxiously aware of his and Steve’s legs touching, and how it shouldn’t mean anything and how it does nonetheless. He thinks back to the kiss and tries to forget that it might have been _Bucky_ flirting but it was _Steve_ who took action. Yes, yes, it meant nothing and he was probably just surprised to see Bucky IRL and all that lead to an impulsive, quick decision. Not to be repeated. Not to be _played_ on repeat in his head over and over, like he does now.

They’re twenty minutes in when Steve points out that one of the main characters looks like an older version of Bruce, a chemogenetics major down the other hallway, and Clint laughs in agreement. The whole thing turns incredibly sad all of a sudden, with the AIDS epidemic showing itself within the circle of the main characters’ friends. Why would Steve pick a movie so heavy on the LGBT issues? Scientific curiosity? They watch most of it silently, and Bucky sniffles quietly into his sweater a couple times, and if Steve picks up on it, he doesn’t say so.

Bucky used to be close to people who contracted it, and thinking of it now makes him uncomfortable, but not by the fact itself. He’s acutely reminded that Steve knows nothing about this particular chapter of _Bucky Barnes alias Failure McDisappointment_. He isn’t so sure he wants him to know, anyway. Even Clint only got the gist of it because Nat found Bucky’s old MySpace profile (MySpace, Jesus Christ) and they don’t keep many secrets from one another. But they were very understanding. With Steve, Bucky can’t make up his mind on how he would react and he’d rather not leave the outcome to chance.

The end credits start rolling over the black screen and Clint pushes the pause button hastily. “Dude, that was intense,” he exclaims. It’s almost one in the morning, they’re all stuffed with Chinese food and are from the looks of it, quite exhausted. Emotionally _and_ physically. They all let out a sigh, nearly in sync.

“It’s supposed to be,” Steve replies. “They didn’t wrap it up neatly and make a big Titanic thing out of it. I liked it.”

“What’s wrong with Titanic?” Bucky chimes in, mostly because it was his oldest sister’s favorite movie for a few years. She had the poster on her wall and wrote two school essays on it.

“Let’s just say Cameron did his best,” Steve elaborates carefully.

Clint makes his best impression of Old Rose, “It’s been 84 years…” They chuckle quietly and brush it off like that. Steve climbs out from under the bunk.

“Sorry for the downer,” he says. Bucky frowns. They were trying to break the habit for a while now.

Clint scoffs. “No, man, I liked it. Probably wouldn’t have picked it up on my own.” He grimaces, and Bucky knows that look. “One question though, don’t you guys need some kind of warm-up first? ‘S what I heard. I was just kinda concerned about their buttholes in that one scene.” Bucky grins in favor of grossing either of them out with too many details, or going into the ‘you’ part of the question, and pushes Clint lightly as Steve grows red.

“Don’t overexert your brain,” Bucky says. Then he turns to Steve, “Come on, I’ll get you to the other side.”

“Oh, I thought he goes both ways,” Clint points out. Bucky throws him a look. Really not helping.

“I, uh…” Steve stammers.

“He’s kidding,” Bucky throws in quickly.

Bucky picks up Steve’s clothes and leads them outside before Clint can make another sand trap remark Bucky will have a harder time getting out of. Steve is quiet, and his posture gives away that it’s not only because they _should_ keep it down. Something’s still up.

They stop at Steve’s door and Bucky searches for eye contact. “I’m… Again, I didn’t mean to come at you out of nowhere,” Steve says. _Really not helping on the 'forgetting it ever happened part' here, Rogers._ But Bucky gets it. It could have been anyone besides him, and well, isn’t it better that he got his first ‘boy’ kiss with Bucky? If he can’t have anything else, at least he’ll have that.

“If you apologize again I’ll French you next time,” Bucky threatens lightly, and in the low emergency light of the hallway, he thinks he can see Steve blush. He might be mistaken, though, he’s not the most awake person right now.

“Fine,” Steve replies sharply, but with a faint smirk, playing along. Bucky stretches out his arms for a goodnight hug and they put their arms around each other, even if he probably should have just gone for a handshake or something. That’s okay though, right? Doesn’t cross any lines Steve isn’t comfortable with. Judging by the way Steve falls into the hug, it isn’t. Bucky pats him lightly and retreats, and they part ways with a mumbled ‘goodnight’.

Hey, so, that happened. Bucky’s not gonna complain. This might be better than going into something neither of them are apparently ready for. Bucky doesn’t keep a record of failed relationships, it’s a list much longer than the zeroes on his student debts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a shameless indulgence in fanon references, I’m not even sorry. Platonic shoulder touches, Doritos and Bucky Bear™ get me out of bed in the morning.
> 
> (In case you're still wondering about what the hell those dots and dashes were at the beginning, it says 'Enjoy!' in Morse Code. I hope you did.)


	3. do i wanna know?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morse Code is marked in capital letters and space in between, like in the beginning. 
> 
> Let me know what you think about this, I'm really curious.

Steve loves new arrivals at the bookstore. Partly because he can pick a copy of his choice and take it home for half the price, but also the grounding smell and the way his heart rushes when he touches a freshly printed copy. It’s like falling in love, but kinder.

They’ve closed earlier today. Mr. Stan is hosting a small performance art show in the reading space, missing the comfy chairs that now serve as the front rows of the improvised stage, and Steve has time until seven to get the arrivals sorted in and be on his way back to the dorm to start reading. If he times it right, he could still have a nightly chat with Bucky after that. He’d love to tell him about the book.

Steve rushes, mindful not to get too distracted by the prospects of the evening and accidentally mix up the titles (both he and Mr. Stan appreciate a well-organized assortment), humming to himself as he bends over the box to take out a handful of books and put them on the shelves. He’s nineteen and still sings the Alphabet song to himself to make sure he puts ‘L’ before ‘M’. By the time he’s done with the fiction genre, it’s stuck to his brain like a nasty piece of gum.

“You’ve got a nice singing voice,” Mr. Stan points out when he walks up the stairs to Steve, and unpacks a couple of books himself. He must be done with the register for today. It’s been nicely quiet, with pretty satisfied customers walking in and out. Steve likes these relaxing work days.

“Thank you, sir,” Steve replies bashfully. He does it more often than he thinks, as Bucky helpfully pointed out recently. (‘A R C T I C  M O N K E Y S.’ – ‘S T A L K E R.’)

Mr. Stan reaches for a higher shelf and Steve steps in with the small ladder before accidents can happen. Mr. Stan steps on it and nods, puts the books in place and stretches out his hand for Steve to give him another stack.

“Didn’t mean for you to stop,” he prompts, but Steve shakes his head with a quiet chuckle as he’s too embarrassed to sing again.

Mr. Stan shrugs, putting the next stack in place. They go on like that in a not-too-uncomfortable silence. Mr. Stan is the kind of man you respect for the radiating authority he exerts without being necessarily intimidating. He is also very kind and understanding when Steve’s ratty immune system gifts him with a second cold in a month so he can’t come in for his shift, or exams are keeping him busy for a month at a time. There’s never the threat of getting fired for not covering enough shifts, and sometimes, Steve can’t believe his luck.

There’s a knock at the closed door and Steve walks down the stairs before Mr. Stan can even make it down the ladder. Steve can see the girl behind the glass, but doesn’t recognize her.

“That should be her,” Mr. Stan elaborates, squinting through his thick glasses. Steve doesn’t know who her is, but he doesn’t ask, either. “Let her in.” Steve turns the key in the lock and politely welcomes her in.

“Hi,” she says. She has a timid smile and alert eyes. Once she has freed her right hand from grasping the giant duffel bag on her back, she holds it out to him and introduces herself. “Wanda,” she says. “I think we had Art History together.” She has a slight accent, might be Russian.

“Uh…” Steve feels bad for failing to recognize her and gives her an apologetic smile.

“No worries, it was Freshman year and I didn’t speak a word of English. Well, _good_ English.”

“You speak it very well,” he replies, getting the sentence across _nearly_ without stuttering. _Evidently you can’t say so for yourself._

“You’re too kind. Is Mr. Stan here?” she wants to know. Steve is about to point upstairs when he sees Mr. Stan descending.

“’f course he is. There’s space in the storage room, I left it open,” Mr. Stan tells her before she can even address it. Her mouth closes immediately and she thanks him before seemingly floating off to the door Mr. Stan pointed her to.

“Get up there and pick something good. It’s on me,” Mr. Stan says, and Steve shakes his head in refusal, about to decline the offer. Mr. Stan tilts his head and adds, “Son, just don’t.”

Steve’s head sinks forward abjectly and he gets up, breathing a little heavier (oh his ever so reliable lungs) and goes through the history section until he finds _Regarding the Pain of Others._

Unable to steal such a treasure from a nice man, though, Steve walks downstairs and leaves the money soundlessly under the counter, next to the wrapping paper for gift packing while Mr. Stan is folding some of the empty boxes behind another shelf.

He remembers he left his bag upstairs when he took out his wallet, and he trudges up again with a sigh when the door opens, and Steve is about to kick himself for not locking it after Wanda. He turns around to see Bucky and Natasha coming in, and frowns because doesn’t remember telling them he was working today.

“Hey there, stranger,” Natasha greets, in a passive voice that still somehow lets Steve know she’s happy to see him. Must be her mouth quirking up for a split-second as she takes off her jacket. Steve puts the book in his bag, swings it over his shoulder and walks down for the last time today. Steve remembers Wanda and the event and all too late, it clicks. Right. Why would they be there for _him_?

“You’re early,” he tells them. “Wanda just went into the storage room to change. I hope.”

“You hope?” Bucky wonders, getting that neat little wrinkle between his eyebrows Steve tries very hard not to look at.

“I didn’t ask. The possibilities range between raiding the stock or summoning dancing spirits,” he jokes, or tries to. Even Bucky only acknowledges it with a quick smirk.

“You’re staying too, right?” he prompts.

Steve is about to pass when Natasha comes closer and gives him a surprise hug and pushes out the little air left in his lungs. He pats her forearms as she continues squeezing him. It’s really hard to say anything, really. “Good, ‘cause I got a task for you,” she reveals. Steve’s mildly intimidated by that, but won’t show for it it unless her hands are reaching his throat.

Bucky smiles, because from the outside, Natasha showing this much affection must be somewhat cute, if not perplexing. Steve’s reaching for his inhaler when Natasha finally lets him go. He takes in a much-appreciated deep breath.

“You didn’t tell me you’d be here,” Bucky says, seeming offended. Steve is waiting for a hug from him but it doesn’t come, so he won’t push it.

Steve stops himself from apologizing, and a look from Natasha tells him he won’t leave with all of his fingers if he bails now. He _could_ talk his way out of this, but it’s not worth to bother. “Neither did you,” Steve replies.

“Here,” Natasha says before handing him something heavy. It’s his camera.

“Where did you…?”

“Your roommate is into me,” she replies coolly, and Steve groans, because he’s very aware of that.

“A traitor, he is.”

Natasha pats Steve’s shoulder. “I would have been worried about you if he _hadn’t_ checked me out.”

Steve scoffs. “He’s been making moves at you since freshman year,” he argues. Natasha smirks.

 “I know,” she says. “Take some good pictures, alright? It’s important to Wanda.” Steve puts the strap around his neck and stuffs the camera bag into his backpack.

“Did you plan this?” Steve wonders, and she brushes his shoulder as she walks past him and into the storage room. The door shuts long before Steve can even begin to protest.

Mr. Stan emerges from the deeper forests of the store. “Oh boy, I forgot to put up the loudspeakers,” he exclaims.

“You got a receiver?” Bucky steps in, immediately. He looks really excited all of a sudden.

Mr. Stan laughs. “I listen to vinyl at home, what do you think?”

Bucky chuckles amiably and immediately has Mr. Stan on his side. Jesus, if he gave people that smile while telling them to drink a gallon of sea water, Steve’s pretty sue they’d barely hesitate.

“Show me what you’ve got,” Bucky says, and Steve is left at the sidelines as the two knock on the storage room door and are let inside. He has no reason to follow, and so he stays where he is.

Apparently Natasha wants him here, so he sits down on an armchair and takes out his book while he waits.

He’s a couple pages in when Bucky and Mr. Stan emerge again. Bucky carries two loudspeakers and a receiver all at once, and Steve is about to help when Bucky slowly puts everything down on the chair next to him.

“Natasha asks you to come in, make a couple shots of Wanda getting ready,” Bucky tells him.

“You sure you don’t need my help here?” Steve offers in return. He’s not an expert on sound systems, but at least he can give it a shot.

“Believe me, I got this,” Bucky replies, brushing a rebellious strand that escaped his bun back behind his ear. He’s put on an actual shirt (a crisp dark grey one), and he’s so handsome Steve could cry. He can’t match someone like this.

Steve gives him a lopsided smile and gets up with his camera to attend where he’s needed.

“You took your time, princess,” Natasha complains, and shoves him towards Wanda, who smiles as she resumes to put on lipstick, leaning her leg against the wall tiles in a split like it’s nothing at all. Now, that’s a shot Steve _wants_ to take. He quickly fumbles around with some settings and finds a good angle in the yellowish, dimmed light of the only bathroom in the building.

“So, what’s this about?” Steve asks nonchalantly. It’s a little easier to talk to Wanda when he doesn’t have to look at her directly.

“I’m doing a recap of ballet history from the Baroque era to its modern interpretation, with the corresponding accompaniment. My professor was pleased when I performed it in class, he thought it would be good to promote the Art wing of the institution,” Wanda explains, blackening her eyelashes. He makes another shot with her eyes wide open to prevent the mascara from touching her eyelid.

“That’s impressive,” Steve supplies.

“Bucky produced the medley,” Natasha adds, arms crossed and leaning against the doorframe. She’s in a couple of the shots, but it only adds to the scene, which is why he hasn’t told her to move.

Steve comes out from behind the camera with an ‘Oh really’ face, and she confirms it with a nod.

“Nat, do you think it’s enough?” Wanda consults as she turns around to face her friend, her other leg finally touching ground. Natasha has too many friends for Steve to keep count of, and since he rarely hangs out with her after class, it’s not a surprise that he hasn’t seen the two together yet. Natasha steps forward, and Steve lifts the camera back to his face and catches a few pictures from their reflection in the mirror. Natasha carefully releases two lazy strands at the sides from Wanda’s otherwise storm-resistant bun.

“You look great,” Natasha honestly compliments.

Wanda chuckles. “I was actually asking about the make-up, but thanks.” They both fall into a quiet laugh, and the shutter closes a few more times because Steve can’t help himself but get such a rare moment on film.

“I’ll go check if the crowd’s arrived,” she announces, and leaves the room. Steve gives Wanda a short smile and she replies with one in return, and they laugh awkwardly at each other.

“You take ballet classes?” Steve asks, because he’s been wondering how she squeezes it into her schedule. Asking questions is better than having to answer them.

“No, not since I was thirteen. Since… I moved.” Steve nods. “Long story. Maybe later.”

Steve is about to ask when she cuts in. “You take pictures often?” _There it is._

Steve looks away. Anywhere but at her or into the mirrors. She sits down on the sink and lets her feet dangle above the floor tiles. “I take pictures of what I think matters,” he says. He sounds so stupidly pretentious. “I mean… you know, the usual.”

“No, I do not,” she replies, followed by a giggle. “Tell me.”

Steve looks up for a moment. She has her head resting on her shoulder and she’s looking directly at him. Is she… flirting?

“I have this thing where every time I empty my SD card, I-”

“Maximoff, on stage,” Natasha all but shouts. Steve didn’t hear her open the door, and Wanda jumps off soundlessly and leads the way outside, hand clutching Steve’s forearm.

The performance lasts about twelve minutes, and everyone is quietly in awe as they watch her move. Steve can distinguish the usual suspects in the music like Tchaikovsky and Debussy (thank 4 years of piano lessons for that particular trivia knowledge), and it flows into one another as nicely as the noticeable shifts in Wanda’s dancing style. Steve gets a little lost in keeping track of both he almost forgets to take pictures of it all.

Wanda bows, and as the lights go on, Steve notices that Bucky has somehow produced a crate of champagne and he pops open a bottle with no casualties, pours it into a glass and hands it to the star of the show. One after another, everyone else has a glass filled, mostly students, mostly minors, but not even the professor Wanda must have been talking about seems to mind. On the contrary, she gladly joins as they raise their glasses and Natasha makes a short toast. Steve takes more pictures one-handed.

Mr. Stan doesn’t chase them out immediately after, because, as Steve belatedly reads on the posters that have been hanging _everywhere_ around the book shop, there’s an after party until eight thirty and beers being produced from the back door. Oh boy.

Energizing, but not too persistent music fills the room, and Steve sees Bucky fumbling around with the provisory sound system. Steve takes another brave sip from his plastic champagne glass and walks over to him, camera dangling around his neck. He puts down his empty glass and takes up the lens to get a handful of shots of Bucky.

“Wrong corner,” Bucky tells him, avoiding to look directly at Steve, “Party’s over there.”

“I think the heroic sound manager deserves his five seconds of fame, too,” Steve argues.

Bucky definitively drops the phone that provides the music, and looks right into the camera. “What about the photographer?” he asks. Steve lowers it. He’s blushing, and hopes that Bucky thinks it’s the bubbly wine. No it’s definitely the alcohol. He’s Irish.

“The photographer just does his job,” Steve replies, and makes a shot of the general crowd  It’s currently missing Wanda, who is changing backstage.

Bucky finds an empty armchair and drops in it, prompting Steve to come closer with a tilt of his head. Slowly, Steve sits down at the armrest, his back turned to the action. Natasha comes by to deliver a comment (Steve thinks she said something about a lousy choice of music, he can’t hear her over it) and beer, which only Bucky of the two accepts. Steve watches her move over to the stage, now reassigned as a dance floor.

“You didn’t actually sign up for this, did you?” Bucky asks.

“I don’t mind it, might be of use on both her and my resume if the shots are good.” Bucky tilts his head to the side, like a dog who doesn’t understand. “Parker got the main cover last month. Something about the spider research project in the biology wing.”

“You’re involved with the college newspaper?” Bucky wonders.

“Yeah, I am. _Periodically_ ,” he replies, leaning towards Bucky.

Bucky’s head tilts forward. “Get _out_ ,” he whines, face hidden behind his hands. “The puns I have to endure…” He’s cute when he rolls his eyes, his cheeks puffed and his posture dripping with the annoyance he feels. Bucky reported some of Clint’s worst crimes against humor. Must be a tough life to live.

“Steve, can you please take a picture of us?” Wanda chimes in all of a sudden, now wearing a cute Bordeaux dress and with a guy at her side. Boyfriend?

He puts an arm around her shoulders and smiles wide as Steve takes a snap, and Wanda asks him to show it to her. “Let me,” she says, and Steve doesn’t understand until she lifts the camera strap over his neck and puts it on herself. “Come on, boys, closer together,” she prompts, and Bucky’s arm around him takes him by surprise and Steve sinks right into the armchair with him, and chuckles when he hears the camera go off. He’ll look like a goddamn idiot in those pictures, for sure. Bucky still has a gentle grip on the side of Steve’s neck when Wanda hands it back to him.

“You were such a great help tonight, thank you,” she tells Steve, closer to his ear so she doesn’t have to raise her voice too much. He shakes his head and brushes it off with a smile, and tells her he was glad to be of use.

“That’s Pietro, my brother,” she introduces. The guy is even taller than Bucky, and he’s weirdly handsome with his natural black hair pushing through the silver dye. It shouldn’t look good, but his quirky, supposed-to-be-formal-wear and smile add up to a unique charm. Bucky seems to think so too, from the way he’s scanning him up and down. Steve forces himself to ignore it.

“Nice to meet you,” Steve replies, over the music that’s gotten louder over the last couple of tracks. Bucky must have set something up. He’s shaking Pietro’s hand now, who is still glued against Steve in the armchair. Steve wants to turns over so he’d be facing Bucky, a needy reminder, a jealous grip on him. He does the opposite when he realizes what the fuck he’s been thinking.

Prayer In C starts and Wanda’s eyes widen excitedly. She turns to her brother to say something, and when he shakes his head she looks at Steve, hands stretched out and he takes them without thinking. She makes a lazy, yet graceful pirouette as she comes on the former stage and starts dancing, relaxed and easy. Steve realizes what he’s gotten himself into way too late, but when he looks back at the armchair, Pietro has already taken Steve’s place and is laughing about something Bucky said.

So Steve tries his best not to stumble over his own feet, and it gets simultaneously easier and harder when more people join them. He’s less exposed now, but on the other hand, he feels really squeezed among all those bodies. He spends a lot of time figuring out how to move, and eventually stops paying attention to his own ridiculousness and simply enjoys Wanda’s smile and the rhythm of the music.

When the curtain of bodies separates for a moment so Steve can see through to the armchair again, Bucky and Pietro are sitting really closely together, and… They’re out of his view just a second later, but he’s pretty sure they were making out. Steve feels like a tidal wave just crushed over him and he can’t fucking breathe, the pain and the suffocating feeling force him to stop dancing.

“Looks like someone’s having fun,” Wanda jokes, having noticed the two as well. She pushes a little closer against Steve, who, for all his general incline to being as polite as possible in _any_ situation is just a little too thrown off to care that he doesn’t pull out of the situation gently enough.

He excuses himself hastily and grabs his bag next to the armchair (so fucking close he can fucking _hear_ them sucking each others faces off) and remembers that _Regarding the Pain of Others_ is still somewhere underneath Bucky’s ass. He briefly considers just to leave it there, get it on his next shift or just forget about it, but there’s _technically_ nothing that would hold him back from getting it, so he swallows the brick in his throat and paces forward quickly. Bucky’s having fun, Steve has no reason to be this infuriated by his tongue inside Pietro’s mouth and his head tilting sideways with his eyes closed sinfully…

“Sorry guys,” Steve says, as steadily as he can and looks for the cover under Bucky’s thigh, but there is nothing there, and Bucky doesn’t register any of it. _Fuck it then._ Must have fallen off or someone pickpocketed it or whatever the fuck happened. What does it matter?

Steve turns on his heels and leaves into the night. He puts on his coat mid-walking, but continues shivering nonetheless.

No reason to be this offended, no reason to be this furious, no reason. _No_.

No. This isn’t right. His reaction isn’t right, but Bucky’s also… No, no, no. Bucky’s supposed to do whatever the hell he wants. He wants to exchange saliva with Pietro? Why should Steve care? They’re friends. Steve stops walking.

Maybe he should go back. He hasn’t gone too far yet. But the image of the two keeps flashing back and Steve has to admit defeat this once. Holding onto whatever it is after he already apologized for the kiss and Bucky agreed that it was stupid is gonna make him lose Bucky as a friend. He doesn’t want it to come as far.

He coughs, wrapping his scarf around himself tighter and grits his teeth hard. His phone vibrates once, and it’s Natasha asking where he is, but he doesn’t bother to unlock it and reply.

It was supposed to be a calm and eventless evening with a book. And then Natasha happened, and so did Bucky and Wanda and Pietro. None of them are to blame. No one is but the noise in his brain that insists that he should be upset, even though there’s nothing to be upset about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like it's my moral obligation to tell you this is the point where you abandon all hope that is gonna be a fluffy, cute fic. I did so a chapter ago.
> 
> **Warning: the author rants a little here.**
> 
> This is the first time I'm writing in a more episode-ish style, meaning I start a new chapter, revise it a lot and post it then, whereas usually I try to write the whole thing at once and fuss way too much about what's happened before and whether it fits with what's coming and this eventually drags me down so much I give up (seriously there's a graveyard of fics in my OneDrive). Posting it is the point of no return in a way, so it keeps me from fixing one or the other small mistake that would otherwise make me really anxious and insecure.
> 
> To sum it up: this time I said 'fuck it', and just took it one chapter at a time while following a general guideline. 
> 
> I'm kinda already sorry for what's coming your way, if you're still with me.
> 
> This is to say I'm kinda insecure about this little experiment and whether it will pan out the way I want it to, because the alternative title for this is Not Another Pining Fic for how often it broke the rules of mutual pining already. 
> 
> I'm looking forward to your response, and I'll try to post as regularly as I can.


	4. i want to love you but i don't know how

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is coming kinda late, I've been working on another story and then writer's block did its thing. Not been feeling so well with constant headaches and stuff like that. Anyway, here's some drunk philosophical Bucky for your entertainment.

“ _This is Steve Rogers. Sorry for being unable to take your call at the moment. Please try again later or leave me a message after the signal. I’ll try to reach out as soon as I can._ ”

Bucky giggles and pokes his cheek with his tongue with an easy smile on his lips. “How are you _so_ damn cute, man?” he whispers into the phone, which is not counter-attacking the Stark-typical level of noise inside his apartment. Naturally, Tony isn’t the peasant type of college student that shares a room with other proletarians, _no_ , he has his own flat with three bedrooms and a fucking in-built _bar_. Maybe there’s a gold-shitting horse behind one of those oversized locked doors.

Bucky turns around from the overfilled living room and is glad to have escaped the masses for now. “Did you know vodka?” he mumbles, glancing at the bottle he hijacked off the counter before leaving for the balcony. It’s fucking December and cold, but screw that when your blood is ninety percent alcohol at one in the morning over the Thanksgiving holidays. He laughs once he realizes he forgot half his sentence. “Did I just… Oh my God, I mean, did you know vodka makes me _really_ _honest_?” he corrects himself.

He huffs and reaches for his jeans pocket where he stores Pietro’s stolen cigarettes. The guy does track and shouldn’t be smoking, anyway. “So, let me get this out of the way first: I did not regret that kiss. Best kiss of my life, okay? Don’t make me regret it, and don’t _you_ regret it either. Weird, spontaneous, yes, maybe stupid. But you know nothing about stupid until you agree to lose your virginity in a back alley in New York, _trust me_.” Bucky breathes in the smoke, dense enough to block the memory of Brock’s alcohol-fueled breath against his ear and his hands pressing painfully hard into his hips and-

_Breathe out._

“Why did I say that? I didn’t wanna tell you that. We only talk about good stuff, right? About electricity made from pee and the parallels between Game of Thrones and the Wars of the Roses and, you know, cool stuff.” He inhales to the point where his eyes water and he feels like his lungs are deflating inside his body and he coughs like a beginner. He can’t really control how deeply he inhales when he’s drunk.

“We talk about the weather and about shitty exams and it feels like there’s this fucking barrier, like I have to dance around what I really wanna say, and let me tell you, I’m not playing this game anymore. I like you, and I like you enough to tell you the truth: _I’m in love with you_ , Steve. Yes.

“The way Cecil loves Carlos and Willem loves Jude. I don’t care what you’re gonna do with that. If this is the end stop, that’s okay, I always hit walls when I fall in love. Seriously, why do we use such _violent_ words to describe loving? Crushing, falling, losing one’s head… Can’t be coincidental, or? And the only reason we haven’t gone extinct _yet_ is not because we love loving, it’s because we love _hurting_. Though, I guess you, as a future Historian, would argue that arranged marriages and the need for offspring to continue family businesses and avoid starvation were the biggest pro argument for lineage succession. You wouldn’t be wrong.”

He looks distastefully at the rolled up stick of burning, stinky dried leafs that make him dizzy and throws the cigarette off the ledge without giving it a second thought. No need to bring back bad habits.

“I don’t wanna kiss other people to find out if I can get your attention and I wish _our_ kiss meant something to you. I wish _I_ meant something a little more to you.”

Bucky sighs, takes a sip of vodka, lets his phone sink and presses the red button without looking.

(Notification: Your voicemail message has been deleted.)

 


	5. it's gonna be a long way to happy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry to have kept you waiting, but I'm not gonna leave you hanging. Here we go, this is the last chapter, aside from an upcoming epilogue. Soon, promise.

Steve’s spent Thanksgiving entirely by himself. He couldn’t afford the ticket back home, Sam had gone to be with his family. Natasha was going to a party with Wanda on the day before Thanksgiving and then leaving as well. He heard nothing from Bucky, which he tells himself is better this way.

Instead of getting to celebrate, he gets to thank his chronic circulatory problems for tying him to bed and Cecil Baldwin’s voice for never failing to assure him that even when your town is being blown to shreds, there is still opportunity to smile and feel awed by the wonder that is the universe.

He doesn’t want to link his sulking about Bucky’s new relationship to actual physical symptoms, because he has been doing perfectly fine the past few months, nothing past a mild cough. The last thing he needs is catching something towards the end of the semester. He definitely didn’t bust his ass getting in here to be thrown out because of a cold.

What he needs even less is being lovesick over someone who doesn’t reciprocate his feelings. It gets in the way of being a hard-working student with two assignments due a couple days, and he hasn’t even started.

Apparently, though, the upper floor of his body didn’t get the memo. He keeps wasting every moment of clarity on Bucky.

Bucky flirted with him the night they met, yet he was pretty quick to draw back from the kiss and later accept Steve’s apology about it. Steve had strongly suspected Bucky didn’t mean anything he said in the first place, but sometimes it hurts to be right.

To be fair, though, Steve lied as well. He never regretted the kiss in itself, he hated the part where he put himself on a silver plate before this nearly perfect guy who kept asking him to hang out afterwards. He hated the part where he let his guard down, let himself be led by compliments and kind words rather than his rational mind that had been ringing the bells right until his naïveté took over.

Because it doesn’t work that way. Someone like Bucky wouldn’t fall for someone like Steve. He thought he could believe him when Bucky told him he was _pretty_ , but the barrier remained. It’s just not something he buys.

Steve thought he could suffocate this lingering feeling of being finally good enough if he told Bucky he didn’t mean it, either.

He has been asked out as a joke before, and it isn’t exactly something that builds up self-esteem. Except, of course, he had to go and crush on Bucky anyway. Despite his mistrust, despite the odds being stacked against him. Pietro was just waiting to happen in one form or another. The last nail in the coffin that’d confirm that this wasn’t real. It wasn’t a thought he wanted to explore much, but Bucky’s actions didn’t permit him to think anything else at this point.

Suffice to say he’s had a lot of time to think about this whole thing, in the times where his brain actually let him finish a thought without immediately forgetting or twisting it around. His muddy state didn’t help reinforce attempts at positive thinking, either.

On day three of his less adventurous version of 127 hours comes to an end and he trusts him body enough to safely walk across the hall to the bathroom to wash up (don’t think too much about how he handled it before that).

Steve always showers in the mornings. Early, early mornings. He’s been a light sleeper all his life and when Sam gets up for pre-class training, so does Steve and heads for his cold good morning shower. He doesn’t drink coffee, because it never fails to make him feel sick and drop his appetite into negative realms. And the stalls are normally abandoned at that time, which he tells himself is not his primary motivation.

Today, though, he only manages to gather himself enough by eleven in the evening to shower off the traces the longest bad day in his recent history. After a quick undressing inside the shower stall and stashing his hearing aid inside his waterproof shower bag, he begins to scrubs off the stench of self-loathing and lazy sweat.

As his luck would have it, when he comes out in his sleeping boxers and an oversized shirt, Bucky is there, fully clothed, shower bag in his hand, toothbrush out. They stare at each other for a moment.

There is a clear difference between their interactions behind some kind of shield, be it a wall or a phone screen, and in person. It’s because when someone can’t see your face, it’s easier to pretend.

“Hi,” Steve says, voice embarrassingly croaky after such a long time of not using it. He doesn’t want to talk to Bucky, since the last time he saw him he’d shown Steve exactly what it had been all about, but he can’t help the fact that a part of him still likes him, despite the betrayal he feels.

“Hey,” Bucky says, much softer, and it isn’t fair to Steve at all. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, but you didn’t reply.” And it never occurred to him that there might be a reason for that? Mainly that Sam stole his charger by accident, but secondly...

“What do you want to talk about?” Steve asks tiredly.

“About what I said in the voicemail,” he says, like Steve is supposed to know what he’s talking about. He did check his phone before he went to shower to look at the time, and he didn’t have any messages. At all. Especially not about a missed voicemail.

Steve frowns. “What voicemail?” he asks. “I didn’t get anything.”

Bucky turns away from the sink and leans his back against it. “So you didn’t hear me drunkenly telling you that I lo- ” Bucky’s eyes widen. “Oh shit.”

Steve feels like he’s just been hit by a 2×4. By Dwayne Johnson.

“Is this funny to you?” he asks. Bucky’s mouth gapes open, and Steve can hear a drop of water fall from the shower head behind him.

Bucky shakes his head and makes a step towards him, but Steve steps backwards, hitting the shower stall with the back of his head. “What? Oh God no, Steve. I would never. I felt like I’ve already been too pushy with you, and I-I get that this isn’t gonna be anything, and maybe it’s better that I’m telling you this when I’m not shitface-”

“Shut up,” Steve says, though it comes out as a growl.

“Steve,” Bucky says, sounding so convincingly hurt.

“Stop, please,” Steve repeats. Bucky tries to take another step closer, but Steve tenses and is about to raise a hand. To do what, he isn’t sure. “Stop,” he says again.

“Stop what?” Bucky asks, brows furrowed and mouth slightly open.

“You can drop the act, Bucky. I swear to God,” Steve replies, he shrugs and laughs, because he’s about to cry and he’ll be long out of this room before he actually does.

“You think I’m playing you?” Bucky asks, showing disbelief. ‘ _Mindfucking’ is the word you’re looking for._

“Are you expecting me to believe otherwise?” Steve barks back. He grabs his shower bag and Bucky quickly positions himself at the door before Steve reaches it. He’ll fight and bite his way through if he has to.

“No, wait, no. Steve, Steve. I’m not, I swear, I wouldn’t. Believe me, but I’m the last guy who would use someone else,” Bucky says, calmly, hand on the door handle. He is shivering lightly, the only sign giving away that this is hard for him to say. Steve’s eyes are fixated on his only point of exit. He can hear each pump of his heart, the waterfall of adrenaline mixing into it.

 “I’m sorry I hurt you, I never meant to do that,” Bucky continues. Steve stays quiet, biting the inside of his mouth. “I’m sorry about Pietro, that was… dumb. Really dumb. But it didn’t mean anything.” Steve doesn’t know what to say. He can feel himself letting go of doubt, even though he has his teeth and nails dug into it.

“I’m exceptionally bad at this, because anything remotely related to relationships in my life has been a bad experience, to put mildly. But I’m a reckless optimist.”

“That’s a dangerous mindset,” Steve replies, trying to smile.

“It’s much more dangerous to push away everyone just because you’ve been hurt by a few,” Bucky provides, and just like that, Steve chooses defeat over fight or flight. He slumps against the shower stall, caves into himself.

His nose burns before the tears fight their way through, falling down his cheeks, hot and messy. Bucky lets him cry it out. He somehow finds the perfect moment, since Steve’s walls are already wrecked beyond repair, to pull him into a hug, on the gross floor of the common bathrooms. He just holds him, a hand on the back of his neck, thumb gently brushing through his short hair. He doesn’t say anything, lets him cry until Steve can’t find more tears to spend.

“It just… It feels like I’m wired that way. I… I can take a punch, God knows how many I got of those in high school, but because of that, things like this are so much harder,” he finally gets out, unsure whether the explanation made sense.

“You got… punched?” Bucky asks, focusing on the entirely wrong thing.

“Yeah, I… Everyone hated me because I got good grades, even though I had to skip classes much. My immune system is really shit, and I have anxiety issues. I’m the weird kid, Buck. I learned Morse Code in an after school club, remember?”

“Jesus…”

“The first time you morsed me, I was convinced you were gonna beat me up,” he adds with a bitter smile. It’s stupid to think now, because Bucky helps people wherever he can, and he’s sometimes a bigger nerd than Steve is.

“Steve, God,” Bucky says, and seems to be unable to help himself when he pulls Steve back into his warm, perfect hug. Steve needs this feeling in a bottle, on a polaroid picture, in an endless poem.

“I… I love you too, Buck, you know?” Steve mumbles into his shirt.

“I know now,” Bucky replies. “And, Steve, it’s always hard to trust people, whether certain things have happened to you or not. Things, if you let me, I’d like to know about someday. But for people like us, it’s just a tiny bit harder.”

Steve nods, lets Bucky go and tries to get up, but stumbles. Bucky catches him in the last second before his head hits the shower stall for real this time. “Help?” Bucky asks.

Their eyes meet, and Steve can’t keep in the smile he feels surging. “I’d like that,” he says.


End file.
